These are just notes that I took as part of a little project that I’ve been doing on Connective Analysis applied to education. I’ve posted them in response to some interesting stuff put on the twitter by @TabitaSurge
Piraha
The Piraha people live in the Amazon rainforest. They’re hunter-gatherers. According to recent figures, there’re about 800 Piraha individuals.
The Pirahã language is fascinating because it has no numbers (as we understand them) nor any conjunctions, so it gives us an insight into an entirely different worldview. These notes came from http://www.geocities.ws/indiosbr_nicolai/piraha1.html and from an email I sent to Daniel Everett, who is one of the few non-Pirahã who is fluent in it.
The Pirahã have a word for learn which seems to mean something like ‘practise’, ‘do repeatedly’ and I assume it is used in conjunction with activities – ‘make arrows repeatedly’ etc. so kind of ‘learn-how’. (Everett argues in Dark Matter that the distinction between knowledge-how and knowledge-that crumbles. So this verb could be used for both.)
’To teach” is derived from the verb ’to put’ “Xihísai’ – “He is good at putting” in the right context can mean that he is a good teacher or a good planter.
There is no word for ‘education’ in Pirahã language.
The nearest they get to the verb ‘to know’ is ‘to see’ . “Dan sees the Piraha language well” “Paóxaisi hi xapaitíiso xobáaxáí” means “Dan is fluent in Piraha”, for example. The thing seen would be the facts or set of facts known. They have a word for ‘look intently’ which can be used to mean something like ‘understand’. If you say “I did not hear you” this can mean literally I did not hear you or I did not understand you. You can say “I did not see well. Now I see well” and this can mean “I did not understand. Now I understand.” They refer to outsiders as ‘crooked head’, which basically seems to mean crazy people – presumably this is a concept related to ‘understanding’ (?)
Etymology of to know
The Proto-Indo-European appears to have had two separate words for to know: firstly, *gneh- which seems to mean something like recognise, be acquainted with; and secondly, *weid- which simply means to see, and metaphorically meant to know a fact (rather than a person). A perfect version of this (have seen) was reinterpreted as a present tense to know. Whilst the English word know stems from the former, we still have evidence of the latter in words like wit, witness etc. Other than this, English doesn’t seem to directly differentiate between acquaintance knowledge, and know-how/that like other European languages do. Spanish, for example, has the verbs conocer and saber. The first of which has evolved from *gneh- and therefore refers to acquaintance knowledge. The second has evolved from the Latin word for to taste. There is a similarity here insofar as the second kind of knowledge (know-how/that) seems to have evolved from a sense, or perception.
Have seen – became to know… Compare with I can see that…
Etymology of to think
The Proto-Indo-European word to think, *men-,is the root of the Latin words for remember and the Greek words for yearn and rage, be mad. It is also the root of our word mind. The word *meino- looks similar and means opinion. It is the root of our English words mean and bemoan. Our word opinion itself comes from a PIE root *op- meaning to choose. What strikes me about these connections is the fact that the emotional connotations seem quite central to their meaning (consider the phrase – I don’t mind). This emotional aspect continues in the PIE word for remember, *(s)mer-, from which we get the word mourn. To remember something was to be concerned about it. And similarly, the English word think (and thought, and thank) all stem from the PIE root *teng- which has connotations of feel. (It is the root of the Albanian word tëngë which means resentment, grudge. In contrast, discussion of memory, remembering, thinking in educational discourse often appears to idealise a kind of coldness, a value-free objectivity. I wonder whether this is a source of confusion.
Etymology of to learn
The PIE word for learn appears to have been a compound of the roots *mens- (mind) and *dh(e)h- (set, place), so it literally would have meant something like mind-place (or place in the mind). The Greek word for learn, mathánō comes directly from this root, but in various other languages it has evolved into words for wish, rejoice, lively, awake, wise, wisdom, and be able. The English word learn stems from the PIE root *lois- meaning furrow, track. It is etymologically related to the word lore (a body of traditions, rules).
- A furrow or track – lore (what is learnt), learn – to follow the track.
- To take, accept
- To seize,
- The key features here appear to be that that-which-is-to-be-learnt has already been laid down.
Etymology of to teach
There are various roots for the concept of teaching in PIE. The English word teach comes from the root *deik- meaning to show or pronounce solemnly. The word doctor comes from the word for *dek- which means to receive. De Vaan (2014) interprets the evolution to doctor in terms of ‘to have someone receive something’. Perhaps my favourite word for teacher is the Avestan word t̃kaēša which comes from the PIE root meaning to pay attention to, to care.
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